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School name

Colégio Sesi - Fazenda Rio Grande

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Year

2014/2015

students

10

date

15/05/2015

Class

last year of high school

Location

Fazenda Rio Grande

Country

Brazil

This project aims to implement an awareness campaign in our school and community regarding road safety and sustainable mobility. The focus of our work was a pedestrian bridge which was not often used by the people who live here.

The ideas

At first, my students and I had meetings to discuss the most important issues within the community. Some of these issues were about the one way streets in town and their lack of signage. Then we thought: ‘How about creating interesting signs or even painting these roads with different colors to warn drivers who insist on driving through the wrong way?’
However, just after our third meeting, we eventually found out what kind of work the school and the community really were in need of: the Pedestrian Bridge. Students raised the reasons why this bridge was not being used effectively. They pointed out that there was no cover over the pedestrian bridge, so it was uncomfortable when it rained. Furthermore, the walk to the bridge was uninteresting and the bridge could be unsafe at times. Given all these motifs, we finally decided what should be done to encourage urban mobility and promote road safety.

The Initiatives

To achieve significant changes in our community with regards to Road Safety and Mobility, we have invested in five main actions that follow: (please take a look at it on the Prezi presentation)

1. Increased awareness of pedestrians who do not cross the bridge by dialoguing with the community about such issue. Students have pointed out the number of accidents and deaths by crossing inappropriately on the roads.

2. Another initiative taken was to involve people to become more responsible citizens with their own safety by posting creative messages all along the bridge itself.

3. Changing perceptions of the use of pedestrian bridges by increasing awareness through the internet - Facebook page.

4. To have an interesting experience while walking by the pedestrian bridge, students have colored it in order to make it more attractive and also to call attention to its function in town.

5. Sensitivity to pedestrian issues by realizing that behavior change is possible when there are committed people to engage others. After all, we are all pedestrians.

Throughout our initiatives in this challenge, we must say that it has been a rewarding project that met both users and students goals in the use of public roads.